The Activision Blizzard Acquisition May Be a Move to Get Game Pass on PS5 and Switch

gamerant.com:

There has been a lot of speculation regarding the motivations behind why Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard. At the end of the day, the reason why major corporations buy other major corporations is to make money, but the specifics as to how that's going to happen with this particular acquisition are still up in the air. Because of the widespread popularity of the IPs owned by Activision Blizzard, plenty of fans are skeptical about whether they'll all become Xbox exclusive titles in the future.

Thinking solely about exclusive titles, however, isn't how Xbox has been focusing its efforts in recent years. Instead, Xbox Game Pass has been what the company has been pushing most of all with its marketing and strategy. Exclusives have been used this far to help give Game Pass value for Xbox owners, but with a purchase as big as Activision Blizzard, Microsoft might be trying to make Xbox Game Pass an enticing service that could launch on other, non-Microsoft platforms.

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Microsoft has made it well known that it's approached both of the other major console manufacturers about making Xbox Game Pass a multiplatform service to which it has been denied. This offer is a move that makes sense for Microsoft as it's beginning to think of a bigger picture for Game Pass than simply residing within Xbox consoles, mobile devices, and PCs. While the exact details of the rejection and original offer aren't public, it seems safe to say that the appeal of bringing Xbox branding to the PlayStation 5 and Switch just wasn't worth the PR cost of it to Sony and Nintendo.

Now that Microsoft owns Activision Blizzard, however, a company known for its major multi-platform